Rocannon You seem way more optimistic about contracting than I am. Everything I hear from contractors these days is: the rates are bad, it's hard to find work.

Of course, it's all relative.

Have you examined this in any detail - looked at any particular cities?

Last time I looked around the country for my particular software expertise was in 2006. At that time, there were plenty of opportunites aournd the country. That probably has changed somewhat in the current economy -- for the worse. But if you ar willing to go anywhere, I'm pretty sure you can find something. When you have gaps with no work, that's the fun part when you can goof off.

I do know the rates have gone down since then. Especially since the boom days before the tech wreck. I knew "Multivalue" developers getting over $100 an hour then. By 2005, the same work would bring in $50-$60 an hour.

When I learned the retire-early-extreme guy lives in an RV, I looked into RV living around the big city where I currently live. There's nothing very close, so if I moved into an RV I'd have a pretty bad commute. Still, it might work around other cities.

I have not researched that aspect of it yet. If your work is in large city downtown USA, then commuting would be a problem.

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